University of Florida Professor to Speak at UW Sept. 28-29

Duncan Purves, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Florida, will give two free public talks at the University of Wyoming Thursday and Friday, Sept. 28-29.

Purves’ presentations are at 4 p.m. Thursday in Room 3114 of the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences Building and at 4:10 p.m. Friday in Room 118 of the Classroom Building.

In his first talk, which is titled “Fair Policing in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” Purves will describe recent innovations in criminal justice and law enforcement that are made possible by machine learning, including predictive policing, facial recognition-enabled surveillance cameras and algorithmic criminal risk assessment. He will share the legal and ethical concerns with these technologies.

The second talk is titled “What is Algorithmic Discrimination?” and examines a new way to measure fairness in computer algorithms.

“Computing, with new technologies like artificial intelligence, is impacting all fields of academia and all areas of society,” says Gabrielle Allen, UW School of Computing director. “The humanities are particularly important as we balance the advances computing brings with new questions and challenges.”

Purves, who also is a University of Florida Research Foundation Professor, specializes in ethics, especially those concerning artificial intelligence (AI) and the treatment of nonhuman animals.

He currently has a National Science Foundation grant to investigate the ethical dimensions of predictive policing algorithms. Some of the ethical concerns he is looking at include discriminatory impacts and community distrust.

The Sept. 28 talk is sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies and the School of Computing. The Sept. 29 talk is sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies.

“The School of Computing is pleased to partner with the College of Arts and Sciences to help bring speakers such as Professor Purves to the university to explore critical questions in ethics and AI and to further our own strategic planning at the university toward new partnerships between the School of Computing and the College of Arts and Sciences,” Allen says.

For more information, email Judy Yates, School of Computing administrative associate, at jyates5@uwyo.edu or Rob Colter, head of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, at rcolter@uwyo.edu.